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An interesting quote from Chess secrets I learned from the masters:

"chess lesson. If ever again I participate in a masters tourna­ ment, I
shall do so only if 3-hour sessions can be arranged, such as Emanuel
Lasker originally stipulated for a match with Capablanca. This is the
only reasonable way to play for any master who has reached the age of
50. Two 3-hour sessions a day, with a two-hour intermission, are much
less tiring than one 5-hour session. And after all, a serious chess
game is supposed to show which of the two players under­ stands the game better, not which one has more physical endurance."

And this was around 1949.

Another funny anecdote is that Edward Lasker complains about the
blandness of american coffee compared with south american coffee in 1949
as well!

I do know the bland american coffee, but did not know that this proud
tradition goes back as far as 1949. ;)

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On Mon, 28 Oct 2024, William Hyde wrote:

D wrote:

An interesting quote from Chess secrets I learned from the masters:

"chess lesson. If ever again I participate in a masters tourna­ ment, I
shall do so only if 3-hour sessions can be arranged, such as Emanuel
Lasker originally stipulated for a match with Capablanca. This is the
only reasonable way to play for any master who has reached the age of
50. Two 3-hour sessions a day, with a two-hour intermission, are much
less tiring than one 5-hour session. And after all, a serious chess
game is supposed to show which of the two players under­ stands the game
better, not which one has more physical endurance."

Alas, the days when chess games were played in a format which rewarded deep thought are long gone.

Short time controls do have some benefit for us older types, though, as the games don't last long enough for us to tire. Bad as my G/15 is nowadays, I shudder to think how I would play in 40/2.

At the other extreme, how much is thought, how much luck and how much
reaction time in 1 minute games?

And this was around 1949.

Another funny anecdote is that Edward Lasker complains about the
blandness of american coffee compared with south american coffee in 1949
as well!

I could not believe the crap they called coffee when I first went to Texas. But somehow you get used to it. Then when friends from Canada visited, I was forcefully reminded of how crappy it was.

This is the truth! I experienced similar pains when moving to the US for a
year from sweden.

But good news. While many places still sell the same weak crap, good coffee is not hard to find. Even Starbucks at its worst is a big improvement, and there are local shops which serve good coffee.

Starbucks will do in an emergency. It's not great, in my opinion, but infinitely better than the dirty dishwater found in most offices.

Even better, the best coffee shop was fine with our playing speed chess off peak hours.

Have you ever had complains about speed chess in coffee shops?! Shouldn't
they encourage the practice, since it will keep customers in the cafe
longer?

With speed chess, due to the physical aspect of the game, they will also
become thirsty and drink more. ;)

I do know the bland american coffee, but did not know that this proud
tradition goes back as far as 1949. ;)

Don't get me started on American tea.

I didn't even know there was such a thing as american tea!

William Hyde

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William Hyde wrote:

D wrote:

I do know the bland american coffee, but did not know that
this proud tradition goes back as far as 1949. ;)

Don't get me started on American tea.

I don't know much about American tea but any tea is better than
coffee!!!

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On Mon, 28 Oct 2024, Blueshirt wrote:

William Hyde wrote:

D wrote:

I do know the bland american coffee, but did not know that
this proud tradition goes back as far as 1949. ;)

Don't get me started on American tea.

I don't know much about American tea but any tea is better than
coffee!!!

I like both. For coffee, generally I prefer to pay an extra dollar (or
euro rather) for higher quality. For tea, I prefer Lapsang souchong or
Hojicha.

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On Tue, 29 Oct 2024, William Hyde wrote:

At the other extreme, how much is thought, how much luck and how much
reaction time in 1 minute games?

You have to be fast, and you have to have a good instinct.

When spectating bullet, I often see more than they do, mainly because I don't have to spend time moving the pieces.

Ah yes, bullet was what my mind was searching for, but didn't find.
Thank you. I like the 15 and 30 minute time limits, I think they make
for good entertainment.

But watching those several hours long world championship games does get
a bit tedious for me.

Have you ever had complains about speed chess in coffee shops?! Shouldn't
they encourage the practice, since it will keep customers in the cafe
longer? >
With speed chess, due to the physical aspect of the game, they will also
become thirsty and drink more. ;)

Chess players drink coffee, but don't eat much cake, where the profit really lies. Shops get more profit from bridge, since there are four people to a table and they have time to eat.

Cheap cafe owners!! ;) That reminds me, I read many years ago about some
cafes starting to charge by the minute, since so many people went there
to work without ordering anything. ;)

I used to play speed with an expert friend in a restaurant in Nova Scotia. Though it wasn't a busy place, I made sure to order a pizza slice and bottle of lousy Nova Scotia wine to justify the table.

You might think I was giving odds with the wine, but what I didn't know was that there was a coke/crack operation being worked out of the restaurant. Which is why my opponent was so keen on playing there. He made frequent trips to the washroom, coming back able to play very rapidly.

But not well. Coke isn't good for your game.

This is the truth! Also something I learned in the Edward Lasker book.
Well, actually the lesson was about alcohol and not coke.

Did you ever try?

William Hyde

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D wrote:

On Tue, 29 Oct 2024, William Hyde wrote:

At the other extreme, how much is thought, how much luck
and how much reaction time in 1 minute games?

You have to be fast, and you have to have a good instinct.

When spectating bullet, I often see more than they do,
mainly because I don't have to spend time moving the pieces.

Ah yes, bullet was what my mind was searching for, but didn't
find. Thank you. I like the 15 and 30 minute time limits, I
think they make for good entertainment.

Bullet - 1|0 or 1|1 - is great to watch, I find it very
entertaining... but for me, it's a crap time control to play. At
my level it just seems to be a mad time scramble - fastest
finger first - with a lot of my 'wins' being because I flagged
my opponent, and vice-versa. I used to play a lot of Bullet
games on my tea/lunch breaks at work to pass the time, now I
tend to watch chess YouTube videos instead, as winning speed
chess games on time isn't very exciting at the end of the day.

At the highest level (Magnus/Hikaru/Arkadiy/Alireza/Oleksandr
etc.) Bullet is quite exciting as you can see the skill of these
top chess players playing the game so fast... and of course,
blunders are much more likely at that time control than in an
OTB classic match-up. So I love watching Bullet games. Totally
meaningless at the end of the day, but fun.

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On Tue, 29 Oct 2024 11:14:31 -0400, William Hyde
<wthyde1953@gmail.com> wrote:

Something like 60 minutes for the first 30 moves and a minute increment
would be a compromise I could live with. If I still played tournament
chess.

Ironically, 100 years from now inventing the digital clock with
incremental controls could well be what Bobby Fischer will most be
remembered for. (That and allowing the patent to go into the public
domain by not reneweing his patent)

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On Sat, 2 Nov 2024 17:46:07 -0400, William Hyde <wthyde1953@gmail.com>
wrote:

I didn't even know Bobby Fischer was responsible for incremental time
controls !

He wasn't.

David Bronstein put forward the idea in 1973.

But Bronstein didn't patent it.

Interesting - got a link to an article on this?

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On Sat, 2 Nov 2024 20:06:17 +0000, Silver Skull
<silver.skull@nopsam.com> wrote:

Ironically, 100 years from now inventing the digital clock with
incremental controls could well be what Bobby Fischer will most be
remembered for. (That and allowing the patent to go into the public
domain by not reneweing his patent)

I didn't even know Bobby Fischer was responsible for incremental time >controls !

That was a technology not possible with analog clocks but became the
norm with digital clocks largely due to Fischer who was its greatest
advocate. He didn't invent the digital clock, but he designed the
incremental digital clock. The following article includes both analog
and digital clocks and Fischer's role in the incremental clock.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess_clock

Being an ex-world chess champion should still carry a lot of weight in
the future among chess fans. We all still read about the heroes of the
past and study their games. I think Bobby Fischer will still get
respected for what he did achieve in the game. Plus, no title is bigger
than world champion.

Bullet chess without increment is just a mess so well done Bobby
Fischer, that was a really good invention. It will come in very handy in
the future if the younger generation prefer the faster time controls to
OTB classical, along with that random position 960 thing that he also
gave us.

Not sure what you're talking about - is that what many call "Fischer
Random"?

As for Fischer - I think he would have been much more highly regarded
had he played after 1972. I personally think he would have crushed
Karpov but I would argue that 1969-71 (USSR vs Rest of World,
Interzonal 1970, Fischer v Taimanov/Larson/Petrosian 1971) was an even
greater achievement than beating Spassky.

One of many strange parts of his life was his friendship with William
Lombardy (1937-2017) particularly after the latter became a Catholic
priest. You probably know how Fischer thought about the Roman Catholic
church (grin)

I'm quite sure that Fischer's second match against Spassky (1992) was
a tremendous disappointment not because it was a bad match (it wasn't)
but because it was a flash in the pan which showed us what heights
might have been reached. I'm equally sure I wasn't the only one who
felt that way though to be sure my attention was on three
pre-schoolers (my children) I was somewhat fond of.

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On Sun, 3 Nov 2024 16:42:33 -0500, William Hyde <wthyde1953@gmail.com>
wrote:

The Horny Goat wrote:

As for Fischer - I think he would have been much more highly regarded
had he played after 1972. I personally think he would have crushed
Karpov

Evidently he didn't think so.

Is there a quote your comment is based on?

I think he would have won, but he would have had more trouble than
people expect. If he had a weakness (an area where he was merely 2600 >instead of 2800) it was in defending inferior endgames, and grinding
out marginally superior endgames was perhaps Karpov's main strength.

Fischer successfully defended four of those that I am aware of in 1970, >against Petrosian, Kortchnoi and Browne but I'm not so sure those games
would have gone well against the Karpov of 1975.

But the indisputable truth is that we lost what would have been a
wonderful match. I am still angry about it.

This is the primary reason my personal view of Fischer is lower than
his undoubted strength would deserve. It's not as if he died
tragically (which is how I'd describe Karl Schlechter's death by
starvation in the immediate aftermath of WW1 in Vienna - this is the
Schlechter who went 5-5 with Emmanuel Lasker in 1910)

but I would argue that 1969-71 (USSR vs Rest of World,

Interzonal 1970, Fischer v Taimanov/Larson/Petrosian 1971) was an even
greater achievement than beating Spassky.

Short matches are notoriously unreliable.

While true, 3-1 (2W, 2D, 0L) is an amazing result against a former
world champion for a player who has not had tournament play in the
last 2-3 years before the match.

He also beat Pillsbury 2-0 in this event, and I'd be prepared to bet
he'd have lost an actual match against him by a very lopsided score.

I'd argue Capablanca's loss-less decade against top competition to be
in the top 2 or 3 best results ever. (During that decade the only
games he lost were in simuls some of which were blindfold)

FIDE's system of short matches did a lot of harm to chess and in
particular to players whose psychology does not favour such, as was the
case with Larsen. And it was done to keep Fischer happy, who promptly >skipped the next two cycles and was allowed to play in the next through
a violation of the rules and great generosity on the part of Benko, who
had earned the spot.

As for the interzonal win, interzonals were cat 12 at best and Fischer's
win wasn't qualitatively more impressive than Kotov's, Bronstein's, or >Fischer's earlier win.

I've played through Fischer's games from Palma 1969 and still don't
understand how he lost that game.

If we're looking at tournament victories, there are far more impressive >records set, even in recent times, by Spassky (three cat 15 wins),
Smyslov, Kortchnoi, Tal, and Larsen.Fischer never won a cat 15
tournament. Largely, perhaps, because he avoided them.

Fischer beat Taimanov 6-0, but Taimanov beat Karpov, something Fisher
never did. Furthermore, he beat Karpov when the latter was in his
prime, and further yet, he did it in a magnificent game.

That one win is better than any game of the Fischer-Taimanov match,
possibly better than any of Fischer's wins in the candidates, except the >positional masterpiece of game seven vs Petrosian. (IMO, of course!).

I agree - a couple of those games were pure grinds.

One of many strange parts of his life was his friendship with William
Lombardy (1937-2017) particularly after the latter became a Catholic
priest. You probably know how Fischer thought about the Roman Catholic
church (grin)

He joined it and is buried in a Catholic cemetery. Prior to that I was >aware of his anti-semitic tendencies, but not particularly anti-Catholic
ones except inasmuch as he joined a Protestant cult.

Really?!? I've seen the picture of his gravestone but didn't know the
Catholic part. Most Protestants would not consider Herbert W Armstrong
or his son Garner Ted Protestants.

I'm quite sure that Fischer's second match against Spassky (1992) was
a tremendous disappointment not because it was a bad match (it wasn't)
but because it was a flash in the pan which showed us what heights
might have been reached. I'm equally sure I wasn't the only one who
felt that way

I felt the same, very much so.

At the least he could have teamed up with a GM friend (if he had any
left) and written another book of his games. His comments on game
seven alone would have been worth a book.

I thought My 60 Memorable Games one of the great pieces of annotation.
Note that some of those games were Fischer losses.

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On Thu, 7 Nov 2024 16:55:28 +0000, Silver Skull
<silver.skull@nopsam.com> wrote:

On Thu, 7 Nov 2024 9:35:44 +0000, The Horny Goat wrote:

That was a good summer season for Chess in Vancouver since UBC hosted
a Candidates match, a FIDE Congress and a Canadian Open all during the
university summer session that summer.

Vancouver ? As in, the Canuks ?

Oh well, you have my sympathy. Maybe one day ........

To be sure - that was 1971 and I was a young teenager at that point.

Hopefully it doesn't take another 50 years for a major event to come
this way much less 3 of them. (I'd consider a Canadian Open involving
a World Champion a 'major' anyhow - and I DID meet both Spassky and
Euwe there even though Euwe was berating a group of teenagers for
making too much noise in the skittles room....guilty)

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On Thu, 7 Nov 2024 22:58:01 +0100, D <nospam@example.net> wrote:

That was a good summer season for Chess in Vancouver since UBC hosted
a Candidates match, a FIDE Congress and a Canadian Open all during the
university summer session that summer.

Wise choice. Any parent knows that it starts with chess, and ends with
sex, drugs and rock n' roll. You should thank your parents! ;)

Ha ha ha - funny thing is the match was within 150 yards of the bus
stop while the Open (which I >WAS< allowed to play in and definitely
involved crossing the campus after dark) was about 1/2 mile away.

The main reason I >DIDN'T< go to the Candidates in Toronto was that
the in-laws are about 3/4 hours drive away and I didn't think they'd
understand my spending most of my time NOT with them.... my mother in
law is nearly 90 and I haven't been back there since my wife's passing
2 1/2 years ago.

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On Fri, 8 Nov 2024 10:11:38 +0000, "Blueshirt" <blueshirt@indigo.news>
wrote:

Sex, drugs, rock'n'roll and chess are not normally things you
would associate together!

I have HEARD of 'strip speed chess' but have not had the 'honor'

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On Sat, 9 Nov 2024, The Horny Goat wrote:

On Fri, 8 Nov 2024 10:11:38 +0000, "Blueshirt" <blueshirt@indigo.news>
wrote:

Sex, drugs, rock'n'roll and chess are not normally things you
would associate together!

I have HEARD of 'strip speed chess' but have not had the 'honor'

Haha... never heard of, but I can imagine that it would go perfectly
together with shots of vodka!

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On Sat, 9 Nov 2024, The Horny Goat wrote:

On Thu, 7 Nov 2024 22:58:01 +0100, D <nospam@example.net> wrote:

That was a good summer season for Chess in Vancouver since UBC hosted
a Candidates match, a FIDE Congress and a Canadian Open all during the
university summer session that summer.

Wise choice. Any parent knows that it starts with chess, and ends with
sex, drugs and rock n' roll. You should thank your parents! ;)

Ha ha ha - funny thing is the match was within 150 yards of the bus
stop while the Open (which I >WAS< allowed to play in and definitely
involved crossing the campus after dark) was about 1/2 mile away.

The main reason I >DIDN'T< go to the Candidates in Toronto was that
the in-laws are about 3/4 hours drive away and I didn't think they'd understand my spending most of my time NOT with them.... my mother in
law is nearly 90 and I haven't been back there since my wife's passing
2 1/2 years ago.

Wise choice!

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The Horny Goat wrote:

On Fri, 8 Nov 2024 10:11:38 +0000, "Blueshirt"
<blueshirt@indigo.news> wrote:

Sex, drugs, rock'n'roll and chess are not normally things you
would associate together!

I have HEARD of 'strip speed chess' but have not had the
'honor'

At our age I'm not sure how much of an honour it would really
be...

Also, whenever I do take my clothes off I tend to need a longer
time control than three minutes! ;-)

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On Sun, 10 Nov 2024, Blueshirt wrote:

The Horny Goat wrote:

On Fri, 8 Nov 2024 10:11:38 +0000, "Blueshirt"
<blueshirt@indigo.news> wrote:

Sex, drugs, rock'n'roll and chess are not normally things you
would associate together!

I have HEARD of 'strip speed chess' but have not had the
'honor'

At our age I'm not sure how much of an honour it would really
be...

Don't be so modest... everyone knows that one of the best ways to get a
sixpack is to play a lot of chess! ;)

Also, whenever I do take my clothes off I tend to need a longer
time control than three minutes! ;-)

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William Hyde wrote:

The Horny Goat wrote:

On Sun, 3 Nov 2024 16:42:33 -0500, William Hyde
<wthyde1953@gmail.com> wrote:

The Horny Goat wrote:

As for Fischer - I think he would have been much more
highly regarded had he played after 1972. I personally
think he would have crushed Karpov

Evidently he didn't think so.

Is there a quote your comment is based on?

It is evident in that he dodged the match, insisting on an
unfair advantage that he must have known would not be granted.

Yeah, I always took from what I'd read that Bobby Fischer was
being unreasonable in his demands [unlimited games], clearly
knowing they wouldn't be approved by FIDE, as a way of not
having to play Karpov but saving face at the same time.

Whether he thought he would lose or it was just Bobby Fischer
being Bobby Fischer we'll never know...

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On Tue, 5 Nov 2024 17:21:52 -0500, William Hyde <wthyde1953@gmail.com>
wrote:

As for the interzonal win, interzonals were cat 12 at best and Fischer's >>> win wasn't qualitatively more impressive than Kotov's, Bronstein's, or
Fischer's earlier win.

I've played through Fischer's games from Palma 1969 and still don't
understand how he lost that game.

Do you mean Fisher-Larsen, Palma 1970? As I recall Larsen annotated it
in Chess Canada in an article titled "A strange case of Spanish red
wine", as Larsen had drunk himself to sleep in order to play at the
early hour Fischer's abusive religious requirements dictated.

OK well you've mispelled Fischer while I got the year wrong - guess
that makes it 1/2 - 1/2.....I do have the oriiginal Palma tournament
book though that section of my bookshelves are piled higher and deeper
- in short a real mess. This is what I get for going from memory. (I
would have been 14 years old at the time)

It was very strange my mother wouldn't let me go to Fischer-Taimanov
(we lived in a part of Vancouver that was an 1-1/2 hour bus ride from
home to UBC where the match was held) though my parents DID let me
play in the 1971 Canadian Open which was held in a large university
cafeteria complex about 1/2 mile away (the student union theater where
the Candidates match was held was about 2 blocks from the bus terminal
while the Open was 1/2 mile away in the opposite direction) only 2
months later. I often had to walk the 1/2 mile in darkness after my
round.

That was a good summer season for Chess in Vancouver since UBC hosted
a Candidates match, a FIDE Congress and a Canadian Open all during the university summer session that summer.

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On Thu, 7 Nov 2024, The Horny Goat wrote:

On Tue, 5 Nov 2024 17:21:52 -0500, William Hyde <wthyde1953@gmail.com>
wrote:

As for the interzonal win, interzonals were cat 12 at best and Fischer's >>>> win wasn't qualitatively more impressive than Kotov's, Bronstein's, or >>>> Fischer's earlier win.

I've played through Fischer's games from Palma 1969 and still don't
understand how he lost that game.

Do you mean Fisher-Larsen, Palma 1970? As I recall Larsen annotated it
in Chess Canada in an article titled "A strange case of Spanish red
wine", as Larsen had drunk himself to sleep in order to play at the
early hour Fischer's abusive religious requirements dictated.

OK well you've mispelled Fischer while I got the year wrong - guess
that makes it 1/2 - 1/2.....I do have the oriiginal Palma tournament
book though that section of my bookshelves are piled higher and deeper
- in short a real mess. This is what I get for going from memory. (I
would have been 14 years old at the time)

It was very strange my mother wouldn't let me go to Fischer-Taimanov
(we lived in a part of Vancouver that was an 1-1/2 hour bus ride from
home to UBC where the match was held) though my parents DID let me
play in the 1971 Canadian Open which was held in a large university
cafeteria complex about 1/2 mile away (the student union theater where
the Candidates match was held was about 2 blocks from the bus terminal
while the Open was 1/2 mile away in the opposite direction) only 2
months later. I often had to walk the 1/2 mile in darkness after my
round.

That was a good summer season for Chess in Vancouver since UBC hosted
a Candidates match, a FIDE Congress and a Canadian Open all during the university summer session that summer.

Wise choice. Any parent knows that it starts with chess, and ends with
sex, drugs and rock n' roll. You should thank your parents! ;)

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D wrote:

Any parent knows that it starts with chess, and ends
with sex, drugs and rock n' roll. You should thank your
parents! ;)

Sex, drugs, rock'n'roll and chess are not normally things you
would associate together!

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On Fri, 8 Nov 2024, Blueshirt wrote:

D wrote:

Any parent knows that it starts with chess, and ends
with sex, drugs and rock n' roll. You should thank your
parents! ;)

Sex, drugs, rock'n'roll and chess are not normally things you
would associate together!

Are you sure? Stormy Daniels started her career with playing chess, and
see where she ended up!

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